Knowledge, Attitudes and Behaviour of Female Nursing Students Against HPV

Introduction: The Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) is sexually transmitted and is associated with the development of several types of cancer. The prevention of HPV transmission is based on the knowledge about the virus transmition and on the adoption of right attitudes and behaviour. Aim: The aim of the present study was the determination of the level of knowledge the attitudes and the behaviour against HPV of female students of Nursing Department of National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Material and Method: It was a cross-sectional study, involving 79 first-year and 94 fourth-year students of Nursing Department of National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Data collection was conducted in December 2016, using a questionnaire developed by the researchers for the purposes of this study. It was conducted descriptive and bivariate (t-test, Pearson x2 test) statistical analysis with the Statistical Package for Social Sciences program (SPSS, version 20.0). The significance level was set to 0.05. Results: The mean age of first-year and the fourth-year students was 18.42 years (SD=0.65) and 21.36 years (SD=0.74), respectively (p<0.001). The mean percentage of the right answers to the knowledge questions was 0.61 (SD=0.16) and 0.70 (SD=0.18) for the first and forth year students, respectively (p <0.001). Regarding the attitude against HPV, 96.2% of the first-year students and 97.9% of the fourth-year students had a positive attitude, respectively, but there was no statistically significant difference (p=0.51). As regards the behaviour against HPV, 30.4% of first-year students received appropriate preventive measures against 72.3% of the fourth year students, with the difference being statistically significant (p<0.001). Also, 63.3% of first-year students were vaccinated against HPV, while from the fourth-year students the proportion was 70.6% (p=0.335). Conclusions: The fourth-year students had significantly more knowledge about HPV and received more preventive measures against the virus, compared to first-year students. Obviously, the studies at Department of Nursing played an important role in increasing knowledge and in better prevention against HPV.

Category: Volume 56, N 2
Hits: 967 Hits
Created Date: 15-06-2017
Authors: Stelios Petroglou , Nikolaos V. Fotos , Hero Brokalaki